Over the years, I’ve adopted a simple definition of coaching: “To coach is to develop another person by listening and asking questions to clarify ideas and commit to action.”

If you look closely, you’ll notice five key characteristics. I’ve listed each of them out below:

Developing Others

To coach is to play a development role. It’s focused on growing the competency and capacity of the employee. Consider the difference between a directing approach (“Here is what I need you to do”) and a coaching approach (“Let’s think about how you might address this challenge”). Both are appropriate at times, but the coaching approach is explicitly developmental.

Active Listening

Active listening requires some of the most discipline of any skill there is – but the dividends are enormous. It’s impossible to coach effectively without it. Quite simply, active listening seeks simply to understand the situation and delay the need to formulate a response or craft a solution.

Asking Questions

Asking powerful, open-ended questions goes hand-in-hand with active listening. It’s the perfect antidote to giving unsolicited advice or providing explicit direction. (Those responses are necessary in many management scenarios, but tend to ruin a coaching-rich opportunity). The more input an employee provides, the more he’ll own the solution.

Clarifying Ideas

Clarifying ideas is an extension of both active listening and asking questions. Without this clarity, employees may be unclear about the ultimate desired result – and managers may be unclear about key nuances of the situation. Adept coaches resist the urge to solve the problem until they have understood the situation and taken the opportunity to explore a variety of options together.

Commiting to Action

The last thing coaching leaders do is elicit a commitment to action. Otherwise, the conversation may be positive, but it won’t be productive. Coaching leaders are sure to ask the employee to commit to following through on the agreed upon action.

My favorite conversational “formula” for holding a coaching discussion is the GROW model, which stands for Goal, Reality, Options and Will (or Way Forward). It incorporates each element into a simple framework that can be completed in just a couple minutes.

Coaching employees is hard work – it takes a lot of practice and discipline to develop and use the skills. But the rewards are enormous: a more capable staff, more buy-in, and more capacity for you as the leader, to name a few. Give it a try and keep at it. In the end, everyone wins on this one.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or follow him on Twitter.

Dictatorship is alive and well in the world of global politics, but it’s a not-so-subtle organizational management style as well. So if you want to lead like a dictator, here are some unfortunate suggestions for you, including some from Machiavelli. And if you prefer a more serving style of leadership, note the contrasts.

Capitalize on Crises

Crises can be ripe ground for gaining or expanding control, both in politics and business. All you need to do is find a villain or a condition to blame and pronounce yourself the savior. In fact, when a situation is especially negative (think fallout from a corporate scandal), you don’t necessarily have to have a great plan – you can just capitalize off negative public sentiment.

For servant leaders: Caution against emotional reactions to crises and emphasize the need for qualified leaders with thoughtful solutions.

Keep Others Off Balance

In principled organizations, people always know where they stand because they get clear direction and feedback. Dictators thrive on internal instability. Since knowledge is power, they selectively withhold information so no one has the full picture beside themselves. And instead of creating clear expectations and accountability measures, they play the blame game when things don’t turn out as anticipated.

For servant leaders: Over-communicate what is most important, including goals and plans regarding direction. Be clear about expectations. Give frequent and constructive feedback.

Eliminate Internal Threats

By definition, every leader is a potential threat to a dictator’s power. Therefore, they have no option but to squash leaders who stand out – even (and sometimes especially) the competent ones. In their place, dictators install leaders they can control (e.g. tainted leaders they have dirt on). Additionally, dictators are careful to prevent high levels of trust among their subordinates for fear of future opposition.

For servant leaders: Actively support and celebrate the success of others. Recruit a strong team, including people who are smarter or better than you. Work hard to promote trust and collaboration within the team and organization.

Reward Personal Loyalty

Machiavelli theorized that, “It’s best to be loved as well as feared. But if you can only have one, it is safer to be feared.” Dictators can rarely survive long-term without public support, so there are often distinctions between their public and private dealings. PR is a constant priority. Furthermore, rewards tend to be based on public displays of loyalty and commitment to the cause above other factors, such as competence and courage.

For servant leaders: Reward commitment to the values that guide the organization. Despise favoritism. Build a team with diverse viewpoints.

Prevent Criticism

One reason dictators hate criticism is because much of it is just. And since accountability is in short supply, there is no way to right a misstep – only silence the accusers. Ultimately, criticizing a dictator is dangerous business because it’s received as a threat that must be dealt with – often harshly.

For servant leaders: Know the difference between just and unjust criticism. Seek feedback, take it to heart and then act on it.

By now you may have noticed a trend: dictators thirst for power and can never be fully satisfied. It’s a leadership style that is rooted in fear – and ultimately that fear is passed on to followers. It’s an incredibly damning legacy.

So here’s the question: in which areas do you act more like a dictator than a servant leader?

Incidentally, if you find the philosophies of dictatorship and leadership interesting, pick up a copy of The Prince and give it a read. Or check out one of my favorite leadership books titled The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership, which references several of Machiavelli’s insightful concepts as well.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

Let me share a few ways to get started.

Give Responsibility with Authority

This may be the most accurate definition of empowerment – at least in the context of work. Yet I’m frequently surprised at how many managers miss this. Giving responsibility without authority is no different than dictating. That’s not to say it’s never appropriate, but employees who grow accustomed to taking orders won’t be prepared to step up in a pinch. Make it a practice to give authority, even when it means giving up some control. Constantly look for opportunities to delegate decisions regarding “how.”

Develop Their Competence

Gone are the days when the leader can be expected to provide the full extent of an employee’s training needs. In the knowledge age, employees are expected to bring certain skills and education with them. By the same token, the amount of skills employees need to remain “competent” in their role continues to expand. If you need your employees to be more capable tomorrow than they are today, you’ll need to make their ongoing development a priority (with a plan), regardless of where the development comes from.

Build the Team

In The Secret of Teams, Mark Miller describes high performance teams as those that can function without the active presence of the leader. Each team member knows his or her role, but is also keenly aware of the overarching goals of the team and closely connected with the other team members and external stakeholders. This obviously requires a lot more from both the leader and the team members. If your team can’t function without your direct involvement, you have room to grow in this area.

Build Their Confidence

Employees tend to receive more responsibility once the manager has confidence in them. This is another oversight. An employee’s self-confidence is at least as important, especially when undertaking a new challenge. Once the excitement of the new opportunity wears off, it can be quickly replaced with a sense of “conscious incompetence” – that is, an awareness of a lack of ability. The next phase is a critical period – and can be drastically influenced by positive and constructive feedback received from the manager.

Until your employees are confident in themselves, they won’t be able to make the next step.

Design the Infrastructure

“No matter how emphatically you tell me to [insert directive], it won’t magically make [insert infrastructure prerequisite] exist.”

Have you ever had to have this conversation with a superior? Ever been the guilty boss? True, employees can all be lazy or uncreative at times (that is to say, we’re all human). But issuing orders without understanding the infrastructure requirements is just as lazy. Empowering others means removing the barriers to their success, not ignoring them.

Empowering your employees requires a high degree of effort. Moreover, it won’t always turn out the way you hope. But no matter how proactive your employees are, they can’t completely empower themselves. Do yourself a favor as a manager of people. Go the extra mile. You’ll be the primary beneficiary.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.